An introduction to the history of the development of London, looking particularly at the 20th century and the way the city has been planned. The work centres on the 20th century struggles over the modernization of London's physical fabric, through administrative and political reform. The solutions devised for London by Sir Patrick Abercrombie and Sir Edwin Herbert became prototypes of international good practice and have more than local interest. These famous designs were compromised and at least partly frustrated on their home ground. Tracing common factors in the failures of metropolitan planning and metropolitan government, the text shows how the reforming impulses of modernism were checked, allowing the survival of street-based neighbourhoods, mixed-use districts and a polycentric system of local government. The book goes on to show what London gained from the modernist project and what it avoided. From the perspective of the millennium, it asks what example the streets of London hold for the new era of postmodern urbanism.